


The Dance of Roses

by Project0506



Series: Song of Scheherazade [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arabian Nights Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 01:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11978994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: "The Rose smiles and it's edged with teeth."For one night, all Otabek's wishes are granted.





	The Dance of Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Second in the same universe as Song of Sheherazade, set very shortly after the first. Similar cultural issues apply. See end notes for warnings

The Rose's dance is fire and challenge, delicately restrained fury and thoughtless grace. Torchlight kisses His pale skin and dances in the jangle of gold on His fingers, on His cheek, around His wrists, around His ankles. But the warmth of the light and the wealth of His appointment does nothing to hide this one fact: His is a cold beauty, as entrancing as the reflection of the moon in the blade of Otabek's sword.

 

_It is the treasure of our people, ring whispers in the corners of kitchens and stables. It is the last of our pride, a stolen gem in the hands of a greedy sultan._

 

Otabek gluts himself on flashes of alabaster skin and emerald eyes and finds he could rightly judge no man for burning countries to possess this. After all, didn't the king of Otabek's childhood do the very same? After all, isn't there now envy in even Otabek's eyes, he who is no king, who would still be only slave but for his skill at dealing death?

 

The spiced wine is grit in his throat as he swallows. The hand on his cup trembles the way it never does around a sword.

 

_A dance, called the sultan with ice to his smile. A dance and a night for our conquering Hero!_

_The Rose bowed His head; acquiescent but never subservient._

 

Drummers sunk in shadowed corners pound a heartbeat counterpoint to the laughing bells at His wrist. He dances with His own drum, cured kid-hide stretched tight across a bow of gleaming, polished wood and ringed with tiny silver cymbals. With every beat of it echoes want, sharp as a tent spike, down the length of Otabek's spine. A lute sings a warbling whine.

 

The Rose smiles and it's edged with teeth.  Will you not claim your reward, it says without words. Will you not follow, says the gentle curve of His back as He turns. Will you not come, says the flick of midnight blue silk disappearing around a corner. Otabek is only a man. He goes, he follows. He claims.

 

The slide of Him in Otabek's lap burns bright hot, and His kiss tastes of forbidden things locked far away from crude gazes. He is all that's been promised, all that's been sung about since armies returned from the wretched north boasting of the single bright jewel they'd found there.

 

_Smooth worn cedar and glided bars, a cage on a cart and covered in fine drapes like the curious beasts of traveling entertainers. From inside, the soft sound of rage, like the wild beasts of traveling entertainers_

 

The silk of the Rose's veil catches on the roughness of his hand and the fine fibers tear. It is the first of the priceless things Otabek is to sully tonight. “Peace,” he breathes, though he wants nothing less. Fingers blackened with work dig into soft white thighs to still them. “Peace, I beg you.”

 

“Your sultan grants you a night, oh _brave_ warrior” mocks The Rose. “Would you waste it. Shall the slaves murmur of how repulsive you found your gift.”

 

“Peace,” he begs and folds.

 

It is anger that lights the Rose's limbs as he dances, rage that moves Him like a vision of spirits dancing in the center of a candle. It is self evident the very moment His feet turn out to a beat. Perhaps this, beyond His captivating beauty, is why the sultan hoards Him away from all eyes save the chosen few he sees fit to grant favor.

 

His body trembles now, and Otabek wonders if rage is all He knows. The sum of Him that seems ethereal in motion feels almost frail to his arms. They are nearly of a height, but in Otabek's lap He feels so much smaller. Even the smell of Him, strong where His gold hair tumbles to kiss a shoulder, is something light and delicate and oh-so-fragile. He is a thing of spun glass who has not yet shown the edges of His shards. The line of Him is stiff with bewilderment to Otabek's senses, His voice trembles with it though He wraps it in a sheath of cutting malice.

 

“If this poor one is not to your desires _hero_ –”

 

“I desire only this.”

 

Whether he takes Him tonight or not, his thirst will remain long past the morrow. Otabek is only a man, like the king of his childhood, like the sultan he has pledged his sword to. He can see so clearly, has seen it in the eyes of fellow warriors who earned a night through the sultan's regard: to taste is to sip madness, to touch is to crave forever.

 

To take is to burn worlds for a chance to taste again.

 

A simple soldier reclines in the lavishness of a sultan's kept treasure's apartments, rough tunic stretched taught across his chest. Temptation kneels above him and around him and glares with the fire of two wars.

 

“Will you partake or not?”

 

A simple soldier has simple wants, and they are these: it is the quiet breath of surprise when he presses rough thumbs lightly behind milk-smooth ears. It is the way emerald eyes go heavy lidded when he pulls the heel of his palm up along the curve of a head.

 

_It is to find the spirit of another soldier hardly hidden behind silver and lace._

 

It is to shift the most beautiful boy he's ever seen to recline alongside him. It is to bury his hands in the softest hair in a silent promise to move them no further.

 

“Will you tell me a story?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The sultan orders Yuri to spend a night with Otabek. They do not have sex. It is implied that there have been other instances before Otabek and it can be assumed that Yuri was not given the option to dissent. Nothing is explicitly described.


End file.
